Well it's a New Year, let's get to it Part II

The Festivities of Christmas


Most people usually fall in the category of having a lousy Christmas or a good Christmas.  For once, as far as things go, this was a good Christmas.  Regardless of the typical solemn and depressing Christmas Eve (for some reason it's the time for Christmas arguments in my family!) I dragged myself out of bed the next day at midday dreading the falsely cheerful meeting of the extended family and getting presents that just scream 'I got this at my local garage station', but it turned out to be a good day!  I was surprised to find that my family were genuinely civil and I actually got on with my Uncle without having to hang my head in pure embarrassment.  Dinner was goood and so was the Christmas TV!

New Years was similarly good.  To prevent the warlock having a mental breakdown that none of the family are there fore New Years, I stayed in and was pleasantly surprised that we joined as a family to play a game of Cluedo.  Even more so was spectating my brother finally tasting alcohol for the first time in his 25 years and he didn't just stop at a taste.  Before I knew it I was clawing for some ear plugs and regaled in him accusing everyone else to be drunk.  Of course him winning two games in a row went straight to his head and buoyed his enjoyment in alcohol.  I can tell he'll be hitting the Barcardi Breezer's more frequently.

So this Christmas, for once, has been a good one.  I think the only criticism I have is that with so much free time I've stepped back into my teens and started playing computer games - well who can resist the allure of Steams fantastic sales!  They're pretty much a giveaway!  Looks like I will be kept occupied for a long time then...

My proud collection of Steam Games.

Well Happy New Year, let's get to it then...

It's four days into the New Year and I thought it's about time for an update.

WORK 

So what happened into the lead up to Christmas?

Well it was all systems are go as I finally got my foot into a new job.  Miraculously a job that I applied to at the end of October suddenly emailed me requesting me for an interview 3 days later.  Of course I was overjoyed and turned up early, desperate to make a good impression.  The worsening weather ruined my straightened hair and made my make up run and if that wasn't all they were less than impressed at my earliness.  I also thought, as usual, my mouth ran away with itself and I was speaking incoherently, with no plan and no structure.

However, fast forward 18 hours and I was rudely awakened by a phone call.  Half asleep I answered it and mumbled my words, only to find out that YES I HAVE A NEW JOB!  Success!

This means that for 9hours a week I am a Shelving Assistant in the University Library.

For 4 hours of a week I am a note taker for the university.

That's 13 hours work...slowly getting to the normal 35 hours week.

On the odd occasion I may be asked to cover work shifts at the World Heritage Site, so that's maybe another 2 hours a month.

And so you can see a pattern developing...I am everywhere and nowhere!  Especially as I had the cheek to write on my Personal Statement on my application form that this year I was attempting to secure a voluntary work placement in my local primary school, without bothering to do so.  To prevent me breaking the trust of GTTR that everything on the personal statement is completely honest (and it really is) I had to go to the school and beg for placement. Turns out it doesn't take much begging to get a voluntary position in a school.  They are desperate for more hands.  And voila, I am now in the motion of getting my CRB to spend an afternoon in my local primary school.  Another afternoon gone.

The PGCE Primary Education application itself has yet to get in touch with me regarding my place.  So my plans for the next year are still very much in the air.  I shall digress slightly about my interview for the PGCE.  Again the weather would have it's wicked way, and hence the pour down and incredible wind speeds was very much in it's full power for me getting there in the morning.  And again I was there very very early.  Only my idiotic mind suggested that I ought not to turn up half an hour early - the staff themselves might not even be there right?  So I stood outside in it, for 20mins.  I must have looked a state.  But I got in and started to relax, chatting away to other applicants and the people running the thing, even asking questions during the presentation.  The woman even didn't recognise me as the girl that turned up with obscenities written on my face and still half-cut at a lecture in first year, in which I almost failed my elective module in the subject I'm considering doing a post-grad in!  So all seemed good and like a dream.  In fact I even got the guy I wanted for an interview - a wizened but very friendly fellow.

And so the group task begun and I used the incredible line of 'I think there's a quote in the Main Library here, that there is no other place you could be in one place but in all four corners of the world, and I think that's what teaching does...it makes the world accessible to you.'.  Unfortunately I think that sent ripples around the group and caused a comment of 'we were corny during that' which I'm sure was aimed at me.  But I ignored it.  In fact I felt like I'd take the Elixr of Luck and thought 'this is what I have to do, it makes sense'.  So when I was sat in the independent interviews I was full on confident, including joking and straying from the subject.  Overall it seemed like it was a meeting over a cup of coffee in Starbucks (other coffee shops are available) rather than a meeting which may affect the rest of my life.  I even shocked myself by listening to myself and in the process persuading me that I DID want to do this.  But due to my relaxed nature I found myself mentioning taboo concepts such as 'the naughty table' and things that even child protection would flinch at.  But overall I thought I did well.  Naturally this could be my high mind frame of feeling invincible.  We shall see...

I never expected it to be a sprint...but this..

...this is a bloody marathon.

I haven’t posted in here since August.  And why? I’m not so sure.  Probably plain laziness. 

I did work in College until the start of the new academic year which is a plain enough excuse until October.  So I never did get to meet the hundred or so people I have dealt with, handled, and contacted.  Which I suppose, being in the epicentre of a job which follows so many people through such an important part of their life, it’s kinda not rewarding to see how happy they are.  In fact the best I saw of it was one student recognised me from a tour and said he was incredibly happy with his choice which made me very happy indeed.  And so I left that job with my head held high choosing to ignore the pulling my hair out times or holding my head in my hands while repeatedly saying out loud “Why, just why?!”.  All in all, sucking up to (or rather trying to be amiable with) the boss for so long paid off as she finally saw fit to sit down and write me a reference.

And so that’s the stage I’m at now.  Yes, since October I’ve managed to rekindle my note-taking job, gain another job working on a World Heritage Site (it’s less glamourous than you’d think) and try applying for all sorts of jobs from NHS, retail, jobs within the university and jobs in an office.  And guess what? The success rate is an overwhelming – 0.  Well that was until I got an interview for a Primary PGCE.  It’s still in early stages but I’m going to clutch at that and run with it, I’m going to run with it and make something with it, cos if I don’t…well where will I be next year? Probably about a stone heavier and sat where I am right now.

So here’s to prepping for my interview, and here’s perhaps to a more eventful time in the next few days.  However, the more I’m being stagnant the more likely I’ll visit this blog.

Never ending revolution

This is just a brief blog to say:-

It's weird how the life you lead at the age of 8, comes back around when you grow old and aged.

It never ended...

Despite reckoning that this blog would become high in activity with me posting prolifically, you may be wondering precisely why it has in fact been desolate.  Instead of assuming that I was forever departing from college I am still working there.

Why?
Well to my utter disbelief I was asked to fill in in a temporary position for the admissions secretary.  This was a role I was eager about, before I thought about it...  The person who was supposedly in charge of me has decided to take off the next two weeks, leaving me and the rest of the staff puzzling over what exactly I should be doing.  So I'm left doing back breaking activities, working 11 hours a week.  Just 11 hours.  At a rate that doesn't match the job I'm taking over.  Not only that but they expect me to be around college anyway to answer to the beck and call of people who happen to wonder through the door.  Great stuff.  It's like I've walked into some melodramatic time warp and found myself in the same place as I was in 2010.  Not exactly moving on in leaps and bounds, and not exactly on track to meet my target of £10,000.  In fact my funds are quite dire, and pay hasn't even touched my bank account.  I've not had a lick, a drop, or splash of cash enter my bank since I got some tax back.  So now I'm sitting under the £100 mark and desperately seeking new ways to make money.

I'm guessing you're sat there thinking, why are you complaining you've got a job.  But for the last 3 years I have got myself involved in all sorts of jobs to make ends meet.  Some I have literally hit the jackpot.  The majority alas have been back breaking ones, and this is the one.  It's hard going.  I love giving tours but not when I'm on my 5th one and not had a taste of food since 7pm the night before.  Or trying to get a laugh or reception from a crowd of tired and unamused parents and equally bored kids.  But I love it.  I honestly do.  Not lately though.  And the office work itself is moving file from a -> b, it's so immensely boring that in actual fact I just end up staring and doing it mechanically, going through 10-20 files before I notice I should have changed this or ticked it off here.

I figured this week, maybe it's because I'm reading Alan Sugar, that work is for money.  No matter how decent the person is no-one really works for nothing.  And this is what I've been doing for the last 3 years.
So I have a renewed vigour to find something, anything, that pays.  And today I've launched a full scale attack on all things I can think of to get a job forgetting the seemingly unhelpful graduate bureaus.  If you want something you got to go out and get it.  And I'm going to start by trying to get out of my college.

It's all over...so what now?

The last week has been one of great change.

Wednesday saw me sitting my first ever 'real job' interview away from the university.  Without exhausting you with extensive details, I can honestly say that the whole interview appeared to try and delve into my very soul with such ridiculous questions as 'No-one can maintain popularity with everyone; describe a time in which you have been unpopular and have reconciled the situation' and 'what is the worst job experience you've ever had'.  For some reason I felt it was within my duty to answer each and ever question in depth, which in hindsight I should have gone 'to be honest, really can't think of a time'.  And so with that I was inevitably waiting for a fail, and so I got, the next day, via First Class post.  And so yet another job rejection.

Friday started off at 7.30am for graduation.  The whole ceremony, alongside me accidently forgetting my receipt for my robes (and not needing it anyway), spilling purple nail varnish all over my hands (and hence facing the prospect of shaking the Chancellor Bill Bryson's hand and staining it) and dropping toothpaste down my new black top (becoming a potent blemish in all photos), was rather surreal.  I don't know which was the most bizarre scenario; whether it was a man dressed like a town crier making us whoop and 'ogg' and mexican wave to try and get us in the mood, or whether it was walking on stage in utter silence, or walking out to a standing ovation.  But no matter how surreal it was, it signified one thing, the end of my education career.  And nothing sealed this fact more than moving out of my home for the last three years and moving back into my family home.

So now I'm sat on my bed, watching Top Gear, writing this in some vain attempt to try and make myself of some creative use.  And this is where I must say that I am very much likely to become a prolific blogger.  But as a blogger I have established a number of goals.  Those which have been highlighted in previous blogs about getting over the parental insecurity issue, the getting a job and reaching my first £10 000.  But also new one's such as fully exploring the UK and losing the weight I have steadily gained over the last few years (3 stone just at university!).

So here's to day one of freedom, alas day two and three will be consumed by work back at my college, but passed that, what will happen is fully attributable to fate.

Getting the job done.

So I'm graduating this week.  After all the hum-ing and hah-ing, putting off work by going to university, and just general laziness, now is the crunch.  I have no other option but to work.

Those of you who know me will know that I always seem to be working.  And not just the one job, but two or three at the same time.  And over the last few weeks, despite wanting to soak up new found (adult) freedom I found job after endless job to do.  In fact I even started unconsciously flipping through the infuriating GRB website and joining more (equally frustrating) graduate sites.  So I'm sat here, little less than a month from finishing my exams working two jobs and waiting to hear back from three more.

This is my situation:-

1. A holiday rep job.  The perfect opportunity to travel and work courtesy of a massive money making travel agents.  Status: REJECT.
2. Learning tutor in a Secondary School.  The possibly opportunity to enter an educational environment for a years contract lending itself to further training qualifications. Status: FAIL TO GET BACK TO ME.
3. Science Explainer.  A role as a fun explainer of all things science-y, including giving talks in a planetarium and science lab. Status: CONSIDERING.
4. Education Support Worker.  Helping those who have neuropsychological disorders get the education they require by providing assistance.  Status: INTERVIEW (finally)
5. Library assistant.  Working to shape up my college library. Status: ONGOING.
6. College tour guide.  Showing people around and adopting a lively entertaining manner. Status: ONGOING (never-ending seemingly)

And here's me thinking that maybe I did just deserve to take a year out...

But now I have a new semi-goal...reach the £10,000 stage in under a year...Oh please, please, please!

Just £9,800 to go...